kronicfeld:Roger Moore is worse than Lazenby, in my estimation. That may have had more to do with the insane slapstickery and bad wisecracking in many of his movies, which he can't control, but he's the one who said the words, so ultimately it's his character who gets sullied.

Pretty much that, more or less.

They tried to nullify the hokier, jokier elements of Moore's Bond by making him something of a jerkass (like in parts of The Man with the Golden Gun), but it doesn't quite even out.

I think Lazenby gets the rawest of deals for having done only one movie, and this had nothing to do with his acting abilities (just the misfortune of having a really bad agent). The thing is, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the best of the series, and it's not as if Lazenby had *no* part in making that happen. The conclusion of OHMSS was particularly potent, and it would be interesting to see the other Bonds try to carry the emotionality of those final moments.

kronicfeld:I actually liked Brosnan, but his movies suffer from some of the same problems as Moore's, though to a leser extent.

Brosnan's good as Bond, it's just that his films could get a tad ridiculous, even for this franchise. Die Another Day is borderline unwatchable. They got *so* many things wrong there, and you felt bad that it had to be Brosnan's swan song.

kronicfeld:And I'm sorry, but Daniel Craig's movies are about some Michael Bay action hero who happens to be named James Bond, not the same character that was played by the preceding five actors. He's a great actor and I want to have Layer Cake's babies, but his movies just don't grab me.

I really enjoyed Casino Royale, but Quantum of Solace tried a bit too hard to be something in a Jason Bourne-ish vein. So... we're talking about 50/50.

Craig might move up in the rankings, depending on how good his portrayal in Skyfall is. I hope it leans more towards Bond and away from Bourne.

The thing is, I'm okay with this ranking. I thought Dalton was a solid Bond and got a raw deal. He got criticized for the same things that Daniel Craig is praised for (not to take anything away from Craig, naturally).

Roger Moore for the second overall Bond, though, is not what I had in mind.

If you ever read the books, Dalton was actually closer. That doesn't mean those movies were better or that his acting was superior.... just that his portrayal and the script writing was more Bond than other Bonds.

Mugato:Pierce Brosnan was the best after Connery. He had the cool, suave calculating thing down and he was a cold blooded killer when he had to be. It just sucked that his last couple movies were lame.

The World is Not Enough had some redeeming qualities.

I really dug the reappearance of Robbie Coltrane as Valentin.

And of course, there's Q's final scene, one of the best farewell scenes in a movie (even if ol' Desmond hadn't intended that to be his last Bond movie).

Roger Moore is worse than Lazenby, in my estimation. That may have had more to do with the insane slapstickery and bad wisecracking in many of his movies, which he can't control, but he's the one who said the words, so ultimately it's his character who gets sullied.

I actually liked Brosnan, but his movies suffer from some of the same problems as Moore's, though to a leser extent. And I'm sorry, but Daniel Craig's movies are about some Michael Bay action hero who happens to be named James Bond, not the same character that was played by the preceding five actors. He's a great actor and I want to have Layer Cake's babies, but his movies just don't grab me.

Sure, parts of his portrayal haven't aged well, like when he tells a conquest to scram because of ''man talk.'' But the whiff of chauvinism you catch watching his films is undercut by Connery's oddball charm and quirky delivery.

Sorry apologist writer, but part of what makes Connery's Bond awesome is that he says this stuff and totally pulls it off.If anything, it's refreshingly anachronistic, and often hilariously inappropriate to contemporary sensibilities.It's aged brilliantly, and Connery doesn't undercut it, he owns it.

Mugato:Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: Mugato: Pierce Brosnan was the best after Connery. He had the cool, suave calculating thing down and he was a cold blooded killer when he had to be. It just sucked that his last couple movies were lame.

The World is Not Enough had some redeeming qualities.

I really dug the reappearance of Robbie Coltrane as Valentin.

And of course, there's Q's final scene, one of the best farewell scenes in a movie (even if ol' Desmond hadn't intended that to be his last Bond movie).

I actually liked The World is Not Enough a lot. Yeah, there was a nuclear weapons scientist named Christmas Jones played by Denise Richards but it's a farking James Bond movie. I think it was a solid Bond film. Not as good as GoldenEye but better than any of the Roger Moore efforts.

You are smoking some serious crack if you think TWINE was better that For Your Eyes Only.. That was one of the best Bond flicks. EVER. Period. Full stop.

NO gimmicks, no crazy toys he could use, nothing. Pure spy flick with all the elements of the Cold War and the superpowers using proxies. In fact, I dare say it was a crowning achievement in Bond films.

Their rankings were actually pretty good. The explanation for Brosnan's low position was spot-on. In my view he was the absolute worst Bond. Craig, Dalton, and Moore are all pretty much tied, as far as I'm concerned. They each have their strengths and were entertaining in their own way, though none of them could carry an otherwise awful movie (Quantum, Golden Gun). Even Connery, who's head and shoulders above everyone else, couldn't make Diamonds are Forever work.

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener:Connery, though, was effortlessly and naturally cool. He could be callous and tough as nails, but still have a non-in-your-face sense of sly humor.

His movies weren't generic action flicks. They were espionage movies. Callousness, sly humor, etc were part and parcel of his mission. Look at From Russia With Love; it wasn't a movie about a ticking time bomb, but about acquiring a piece of technology. And the climax wasn't a ninja fight on top of a crane on the top of a skyscraper that the good guy wins because of [DEUS EX MACHINA], it was a chess game in a train car where the bad guy had the upper hand the entire time.